


One Month Today

by embulalia



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Light Angst, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Post-Weirdmageddon, Temporary Amnesia, again just referenced, i think it counts for that aha, it's just them talking to each other honestly, mostly just referenced, you know since so many comments on my other thing are "TALK TO EACH OTHER YOU DUMMIES"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:04:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6337690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embulalia/pseuds/embulalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Stan twins, stuck with each other as they are, find that keeping secrets isn't quite as easy as it used to be. </p>
<p>Just a little one off between chapters of my longer project. Everyone keeps staying that these nerds need to talk to each other, so... voila! Bro talks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Month Today

One month. It had been one month.

Stan has the day marked on his calendar, denoted by a little red circle in the bottom left corner of the block. Matching circles are scribbled in the blocks bearing that number for every month. There are no labels; he knows exactly what they mean. 

It’s a date that he doesn’t want to forget.

The date that he regained his memory of his brother.

It had taken almost two whole weeks, he has been told. Ford doesn’t like to discuss it, and Stan never got a chance to ask the kids without him present, so he knows little of the details. He isn’t even sure that he wants to know the details. 

The details don’t matter. What matters is now.

They have been living on the sea for a little while now: just long enough to stay upright when the ocean waves rock the boat, but not long enough to escape the occasional bout of nausea. They playfully mock and cajole each other when one gets ill, but it is only to offset the act of soothingly rubbing each other’s backs. They are brothers, after all: their duty is to tease just as much as it is to care for one another. 

They have been brothers again for one month today.

Stan hears the muffled clunk of boots on wood. Ford is pacing again, drifting back and forth across the deck as his mind works. Is that a recent habit, or had he always done that? Stan grits his teeth a little. Any little piece of the past that escapes his mind fills him with dread, even if it’s something perfectly reasonable to have forgotten. He had lost everything, and, despite having gotten so much back, he is still finding small holes in the tapestry. 

He remembers how great it had felt to punch the shit out of that triangle and feels a tiny bit better.

What had he come back inside for? Oh, yes, of course. He was going to make lunch. He fancied himself a cook, and, over the years, had developed a decent amount of skill for it. The limited supplies sea life saddled him with restricted his ability to showcase that skill, but he made do. 

He had his sights set on something simple for today: just some soup and crackers. The fall winds are far more chilling on the water than they had been on land, and the men are still adjusting to the persistent cold. Coffee and tea are treasured commodities, and Stan can’t remember a time in his life where he had loved soups and stews so much.

He fills two bowls with hot broth and sets them on the counter. Then, he shouts, “Hey Sixer! Lunch!”

Clunking footsteps herald Ford’s arrival. His cheeks are red and his fluffy hair is ruffled from the wind. “Soup?” he comments, a smile lighting up his face. Stan grins back and nods, pressing one of the warm bowls into his hand.

“Figured we’d take a little while inside here and warm up,” he suggests, picking up the other bowl and a spoon. 

“Sounds great,” Ford agrees readily, tucking into his food. The heat settles in his stomach and he immediately begins to feel better, comforted by a wave of warmth easing through him. Stan watches him relax with a little smile.

Then, something catches his eye.

His brows knit together confusedly. What on earth is that hiding just under his brother’s sleeve?

“Your glasses are filthy,” he comments, keeping his eye on Ford’s wrist as he raises his hand to remove them. His sleeve slips down just enough for Stan to confirm that what he had seen wasn’t just an odd shadow. He grabs Ford’s hand.

“What are you doing?!” Ford yelps, instinctively flinching away and pulling on his arm. Stan holds it firmly, staring at the thick, red band of scarred skin wrapping around his brother’s wrist like some sort of twisted bracelet. Ford purses his lips.

“What’s this?” Stan asks softly.

“Stanley, let go of me please,” Ford replies, his voice even and measured.

“Not until you tell me what this is.”

“I have no interest in discussing—”

“Stanford.”

Ford pauses, startled by the use of his full name rather than one of Stan’s countless nicknames. He looks unnerved, concerned, maybe even saddened. “It’s a burn,” Ford says simply, hoping that would suffice.

“A burn? It’s huge. How the hell did you burn yourself all the way around your arm?” 

He should’ve known it wouldn’t be.

“Look, Stanley, it’s not worth discussing,” Ford says tersely, squirming a little. He adjusts his glasses nervously, without thinking about what he was doing. Predictably, his other sleeve shifts, and Stan quickly has a hold on that arm, too.

“Both arms,” Stan says, confused emotions building up in his chest. “You’ve got massive damn burns all the way around both of your arms.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Ford tries a defiant stance. “Yes,” he says, lifting his chin a little. “Yes, as it happens, I do.”

“How.”

“Clumsiness.”

Stan grits his teeth. “I’m not that dumb, Stanford. How the hell could someone pull this off at all, let alone TWICE?”

Ford winces. “I wasn’t trying to suggest—” 

“I don’t care about that! Just tell me what this is!”

Ford is startled by the amount of emotion that had snuck its way into Stan’s shout. He looks so worried, even if it is masked by his frustration with Ford’s avoidance and deflection. Ford sighs.

“It’s not something you forgot,” he says, guessing at what some of his upset may be. “You never knew about it.”

Stan is slightly relieved by this announcement, but it’s only a small comfort. “Then tell me about it now.”

Ford is quiet. He doesn’t want to explain this, he really doesn’t. If he had his way, he wouldn’t think about it at all. 

“Please,” Stan adds after the pause had gone on too long. The level of sincerity in the plead catches Ford off guard. He sighs a slow, slightly shuddering sigh.

“It was Bill. Alright?” Ford huffs. Stan just waits expectantly. Ford groans a little. “He had cuffs around my wrists. When he jolted me with electricity, the metal heated up.”

Stan physically recoils. “When he WHAT?!”

“Stanley, please. It’s fine.”

“It is not fine! Why haven’t you told me about this?! He electrocuted you?!”

Ford shakes his head firmly. “No no, he shocked me. Electrocution refers only to exposure that results in death.”

Stan groans loudly. “Are you kidding me, Stanford? You’re correcting me NOW?” Ford doesn’t reply, allowing silence to fall back over them. Stan breaks it. “Alright. Fine. He shocked you.”

“Yes.”

“Why is this the first I’m hearing of it?!” Stan pauses. “It… It is the first I’m hearing of it, right? You weren’t lying?”

“Yes, you didn’t know,” Ford says with a sigh. His neck itches.

Stan nods a little, believing him. He plays Ford’s words over in his mind, trying to get a sense of it. “So… He… he had you in cuffs… Thick cuffs…” he muses, looking over the thickness of the burns with a grimace.

“They were more akin to manacles than handcuffs,” Ford says softly.

“Whatever…” Stan mutters, although he does adjust his imagining accordingly. 

The itch grates on Ford. He wriggles his hand out of Stan’s grasp and scratches at it, trying to keep his sweater collar in place. He knows it only itches because he’s painfully aware of the third band hidden there, but knowing why something itches does little to soothe the skin. Stan notices.

“Please tell me there’s not more…” he says weakly. He is met with silence and moans. “Around your neck, too…?”

Ford sighs. Perhaps there was no use in hiding from this any longer. He pulls down his sweater collar begrudgingly, allowing Stan to see the scar underneath. He winces.

“And this… this happened when…?”

“When Bill had me hostage.” Ford glances at the bowl of soup Stan had taken from him at the beginning of this confrontation. It’s most likely not so warm anymore. He sighs, mourning the loss.

“God…” Stan releases Ford’s hands, running his fingers over his knit hat. “These look like they were serious burns…”

“The kids helped me tend to them. Bandaging and such. I would’ve done it myself, but it’s difficult when the injury is on the wrists,” Ford reflects. 

“Yeah. I guess it would be,” Stan agrees joylessly.

The room goes quiet again, letting the men think. Stan isn’t sure how to feel about this information. The mental image of Ford, trussed up in thick, heavy manacles, being jolted with electricity enough that the metals holding him grow burning hot. He shudders, rage flooding his chest. He remembers punching the shit out of the damn triangle and is filled with bitter satisfaction.

“Ford… Look… I want you to tell me these things…” he says quietly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Please, don’t hide this stuff from me… I could help, you know…?”

Ford nods a little. “Yes, I know. But you couldn’t this time, and there’s no reason to worry about it still. I’m fine.” He pauses for a moment. “I’m actually quite happy.”

Stan looks up at him. “You are?”

“Yes, of course… This is our dream, right?” Ford says, gesturing in all directions. “Being out on the sea, having grand adventures, just the two of us?”

Stan smiles a little. “Yeah, yeah, it is.”

Ford smiles back.

They’ve been brothers again for a month now, and they couldn’t be more aware of how out of practice they are. But they have time.

**Author's Note:**

> Gosh golly jee, I love a good bro talk. Hope you enjoyed too. Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
